Autism Blog Ring

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Reflections

If anyone is still out there, you have probably guessed by now that this blog got to be too much for me to keep up. Being a working mother of two means I don't have much time for pursuits like this. And I will admit it - Facebook has reared its ugly head in my life, and I waste too much precious time there. But it helps me connect with people efficiently, so off I go!

I will hang on to this blog a while longer. I am toying with writing more personal posts, rather than just posting links to information. I don't know if I am brave enough to do that yet.

I thought about this blog after watching several episodes of "Parenthood". If you have not seen it yet, it is on Tuesday nights at 10:00 pm on NBC. One of the characters on the program is a child with Asperger's. A producer on the show has a child on the spectrum and he is responsible for this plot direction. And if you ask me, except for a few bits of melodrama, they get a lot of it right. I can so relate to the mother, to the overexplaining of behavior, to the general dreadful anticipation of what is going to happen next. But they also show how normal life can still be, how they are still a typical family, how they still love their child fiercely.

I confess that there is something very legitimizing about seeing your own struggle reflected back at you in popular culture. Suddenly my experience seems validated. Somebody else is going through the same thing! It makes me feel less alone. Finally! Someone is trying to get across to the rest of the world what it feels like to parent a child on the spectrum.

I wonder how Aspies feel about this portrayal, and if the character of Max will be developed more, so we can get more of his perspective worked into the show. It will be interesting to see where this all goes.